RESOURCES

RSPS SOURCES

OpenRSC

The project began officially in June 2018, though its earliest foundations reach back to 2009 with the work known as “Open RSCD v25.” OpenRSC has always been a community-led, non-profit, open source effort that aims to recreate the original RSC experience with accuracy while keeping the game configurable and open for anyone who wants to explore or preserve it. The intention has been to keep the memory of the 2001 to 2018 era of RSC alive and accessible at a time when it is effectively abandonware. Across more than a decade, many private servers have risen and fallen, often built around donations, paid features, subscriptions, and other profit-focused systems. The culture surrounding these servers frequently discouraged learning, sharing, and collaboration, with closed codebases, hostile behavior, financial motives, trust issues, and regular DDoS threats defining much of the scene. OpenRSC was created as a deliberate contrast to that environment, led by real-world professionals with backgrounds in software development, security, and operations who value transparency, education, and open participation.

HANDPICKED & VERIFIED

RSPS SOURCES

Darkan (2012)

Darkan is an open-source RSPS project designed to recreate a familiar era of the game with a focus on genuine content completion rather than producing another barebones framework. Built on revision 727 with a cache from around July 2012, it aims to be a solid, long-term base that developers can extend meaningfully rather than copy, paste, and host without involvement. Its structure encourages contribution by keeping the authentication, lobby, and social systems closed-source but publicly accessible through API endpoints, making it possible to run a world with minimal client-side effort while remaining part of the broader community. The project offers multiple experience rates, with world 1 providing a near-authentic 1x environment and world 2 offering 25x rates alongside quality-of-life features, resulting in a small yet dedicated player base that gravitates more toward the faster-paced world. A lobby system modeled after Jagex allows cross-world communication, though each world maintains separate progression and economies. Development activity varies depending on the scope of updates, as the project is driven by passion and long-term goals, and it currently includes a growing list of features such as 33 of the 183 quests implemented as of July 14th, 2022. Beyond gameplay, the project serves as a collaborative environment where contributors help each other learn more about programming and the underlying game engine, continuing the tradition of shared knowledge that has shaped Darkan’s identity.

HANDPICKED & VERIFIED

RSPS SOURCES

Lost City (2004)

Lost City exists to protect RuneScape’s legacy by making it openly accessible through source-available preservation. A significant portion of the game’s early history is at risk of vanishing permanently, and without action today, entire eras of content may never be recoverable again. The motivation behind this project is simple: to leave something meaningful for future players and developers. A tremendous amount of time has gone into understanding how the original game behaved—how the client functioned, how caches were structured, and how the server interpreted every action. The goal is not just to recreate the visible gameplay, but also the underlying habits and limitations of the original engine. The project began in 2022 with the intention of reconstructing RS2 as it appeared on May 18, 2004. At that time, it was becoming obvious that the internet was quietly losing old screenshots, videos, and forum posts that once documented how the game looked and played. Years were spent studying client behavior, decoding cache formats, and analyzing gameplay systems. Once the project became open source, others joined in to refine details and help make setup easier. The choice of May 18, 2004 comes down to the data available when development started. Although RS2 originally launched on March 29, earlier builds are extremely difficult to recover with certainty. The May 18 version is the last revision before a major cache format change, meaning it was never overwritten by later patches. This makes it uniquely reliable for preservation. Since then, additional nearby revisions have been located, but the decision was made to complete this one fully before moving on. It is a common assumption that Jagex maintains complete archives of every version, but this is not the case. Proper version control reportedly wasn’t adopted until around 2012. Before then, backups were stored on physical tapes, most of which are no longer available. The only reason Old School RuneScape exists today is because a single complete tape backup happened to survive. Earlier development was handled manually through three folders—WIP, RC, and LIVE—and changes were promoted between them without automated logs. Much of the game’s early history was overwritten repeatedly with no version tracking. Private servers do not possess accurate historical backups either. The only files ever distributed to players were client caches, which contain assets like models and textures but no server logic or dialogue. Over the years, various recreations were attempted, but they often contained inaccuracies, assumptions, or personal interpretations. These efforts can still be enjoyable, but they should not be regarded as genuine preservation. Lost City’s purpose is different: to faithfully preserve a piece of gaming history as it truly was, rather than creating a reinterpretation.

HANDPICKED & VERIFIED

RSPS SOURCES

2011Scape

Welcome to 2011Scape, an open-source emulation of RuneScape as it was in 2011. We encourage all newcomers to the project, whether you're interested in playing single-player, on the official world, or contributing whether you're an entry-level or an experienced developer. 2011Scape is licensed with BSD 3-Clause License, and all use or distribution of the code follows the license' permissions.

HANDPICKED & VERIFIED

RSPS SOURCES

Tarnish

Tarnish is a 317 server built on top of the OS-Royale base. After extensive development and many long hours of refinement, the project has been made available for others who may benefit from the work. While it is not the most up-to-date in terms of modern content, it runs on 214 data and includes the complete set of items, maps, objects, and similar assets. Although it does not come with a fully developed infrastructure, it features the OSRS-style animation system, making future content creation significantly easier. The source and client are provided for free use and experimentation, but the Tarnish name and branding remain reserved and are not permitted for reuse, as they will be used in future projects.

HANDPICKED & VERIFIED

RSPS SOURCES

2009scape

2009scape is an unofficial recreation of RuneScape as it existed around 2009, a period many players feel gets overlooked. The aim is to rebuild that era as completely and accurately as possible so people can experience the RS2HD days again. The team is a non-profit group trying to do something unusual within open source: keeping the engine and core systems open, while protecting certain content privately. In the past, the project has faced repeated problems with people attempting to sell leaked code or abuse vulnerabilities for in-game profit. One major wave of exploiters was removed in a mass ban that drained over 100 million from the game economy. Because of issues like these, the project maintains an open-source foundation but keeps some content closed to reduce abuse and preserve stability. The project has changed a lot over time. What exists today started years ago under the name Arios498, a popular server that ran daily but was closed source and operated for profit. It later evolved into Arios530, targeting RuneScape build 530 with content roughly matching early 2009. Development eventually collapsed when someone inside the closed-source team released the code publicly. After that leak, the original creators moved on and launched Kratos 530 in 2015. 2009scape itself was revived because the developers loved the 530 revision and didn’t want it to disappear. A small team spent hundreds of hours cleaning up and improving the abandoned codebase. Over the last year especially, many contributors have come and gone, fixing issues they discovered either in their own testing environments or by comparing behavior against the live version that has been hosted for players. By mid-2021, the team decided to split the experience into two separate directions: Legacy and Preservation. Legacy was the original base world, at one point known as World 2. The earlier Legacy World 1 was removed at the request of its players to make room for a different kind of server. Preservation was originally planned as a single replacement build, but the team chose a new path: keep Legacy open source as a flexible foundation, and run one Preservation world that stays loyal to the 2009 era even when that era included unpopular changes from Jagex, such as trade restrictions or the absence of Wilderness activity. Preservation is meant to be a historical snapshot of late 2009, built around revision 578 from December 22, 2009. Legacy, on the other hand, may move forward only as far as revision 531 to support Soul Wars, but it is not intended to follow Preservation into 578. As of August 2021, Legacy remained the only world being actively hosted and developed, with ongoing work driven by the core team and community contributors.

HANDPICKED & VERIFIED